


The Song of the Shepard: Selected Poems

by Charlotte_Ann_Kent



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alliance, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Citadel, Drama, Epic Poetry, Female Friendship, Friendship, Future, Gen, Human, IN SPACE!, Mass Relay, Normandy-SR1, Outer Space, Poetry, SSV Nomandy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Flight, Space Marines, Space Opera, War, alien - Freeform, science-fiction, space, star-ship, thresher maw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9777782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlotte_Ann_Kent/pseuds/Charlotte_Ann_Kent
Summary: A collection of short Mass Effect poems taken from poetic epic The Song of the Shepard’.  Includes the one shots 'The Three Marines and the Geth, "Into the Serpent Nebula", and "Battle in the Wards".Features Rosamund Shepard a paragade, spacer/war-hero.  Spoilers for Mass Effect.  {‘The Song’ as a whole is available elsewhere, but I wanted to share some scenes as stand-alone poems.}





	1. The Launch of the SSV Normandy

_From[The Attack Upon Eden Prime,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/the-song-of-the-shepard-attack-upon-eden-prime/) the first Canto of ["The Song"](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/). Shepard is embarked as XO aboard the newly christened Alliance stealth frigate, Normandy._

* * *

   
Through the frosty turbulent skies  
To where the blaze of heat and light  
Clashes with black in the roofless heights.  
Our ship is new, her lines are clean  
The crew is eager to fly  
Before us is Space, the seen and unseen  
In the untold depths of the sky.  
We leave Earth behind – we’re out past the moon.  
We turn the ship’s prow from the Sun’s golden noon  
And sail, sail away more fleet than a ray  
Of that glorious, brilliant, ancient day.

We’re embarked on our vessel’s maiden flight,  
Her first dive to the deep night’s sea.  
A shakedown run for the young prototype,  
The stealth frigate Normandy.  
She’s set for a colony claimed by mankind  
Renowned for its beauty, called Eden Prime.  
I’ve worked on the moon and I’ve put by on Mars.  
I’ve walked other planets, around distant stars  
My boot has marked lands where no human has dwelt  
I’ve trained among alien asteroid belts  
From my youth starships have been my home.  
And they still are now that I am grown.  
For proudly I tread where my parents trod  
An Alliance marine, before man, before God.  
For ten years I’ve guarded and fought and served  
And many have heard the name Rosamund Shepard.  
But though I’ve seen much in my thirty-years time  
I’ve never set foot on fair Eden Prime.

Pluto the frozen looms up and goes by,  
We’ve dropped out of light speed. The Mass Relay’s nigh.  
I tread the command deck up to the bridge.  
The Relay’s ahead; it pulses, glows  
A huge black curve and a whirligig  
Spinning, spinning, juxtaposed  
Across the speckled field of night  
Swiftly drawing huger, near.  
Work of an ancient massive might.  
The stations call. ‘All go! We’re clear!’  
And the Normandy dives to the light.

* * *


	2. The Three Marines and the Geth

_From[The Attack Upon Eden Prime,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/the-song-of-the-shepard-attack-upon-eden-prime/) the first Canto of ["The Song"](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/). _ Shepard and a squad of marines are trying to recover an ancient artefact during an attack by enemy synthetics.

* * *

We three go on, to the lip of a dell,   
A deep rounded hollow, it’s paths travelled well.   
Down at the dig-site, the sun’s ray are gone   
And the darkness of evening is quite far along.   
The gleam and clang of a swift metal body   
Slick sterilized white, shiny and gaudy,   
And a Geth and more move in the shadow and stones.   
The tread of their feet is like breaking of bones.   
Alenko’s bright omnitool flashes,   
Overloading their circuitry   
His gleaming biotic force lashes   
The Geth at velocity.   
Williams is not a biotic   
But boy can she handle a gun!   
Deadly and sharp, far beyond quick   
Quick and knows which way to run   
My biotic warp fields crumble the Geth   
Had they been alive, they would now know death.   
Unliving, unbreathing, insensate steel!   
They do not live so they can’t die … or feel.   
We came on them swiftly from out of the dusk   
We saw them plain, but they never saw us.   
They fall in the twilight down on rugged stone   
And we three marines are left here alone.


	3. The Prothean Beacon

_From[The Attack Upon Eden Prime,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/the-song-of-the-shepard-attack-upon-eden-prime/) the first Canto of ["The Song"](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/).  An attacking enemy has retreated, Shepard and her squad have shut down the explosives they left. Shepard expects that a militarily important artefact was stolen in the raid._

* * *

  

We head back through the space-port, searching the platforms  
Though the beacon must surely have long since been borne  
Away in the hands of the marauding Geth  
Must surely now be in that black hulk of death.  
And yet, on a deck, a tall pillar stands,  
As if, untouched by enemy hands,  
It sits unhurt, and waiting for us,  
Humming and greenly luminous.  
It is the beacon. Williams confirms it  
But she is puzzled, it didn’t emit  
A light or a sound when it was first found.  
Before it sat quiet and still on the ground.  
Like polar aurora, pulsing, singing  
The light dances up its cone, emblazoning  
Dark steel with flickering green, mesmerizing.  
The sound seems to grow, a low murmuring.  
I shrug, turn away, and open my com,  
To call to the Captain that all is now calm.  
Alenko still watches as I pass by,  
Strong curiosity in his brown eyes.  
The thing is lovely, strange, and old.  
For this, he has fought and Jenkins lies cold.  
I contact the ship, get Joker on-line,  
Tell him the beacon still seems to be fine.  
Movement catches my notice-  
‘Alenko!’  
He struggles as though in a strong under-tow.  
It’s dragging him towards the glimmering beacon  
Seizing him fiercely, he seems to be weakened.  
Over the deck, towards the beacon, toward him  
I dash and I shout, the light has grown dim.  
His planted heels slip and his hands find no grip.  
The humming grows louder. His booted feet trip.  
I leap and I grasp him. The beacon grasps me.  
A moment I wrangle, then hurl him free.  
He falls safe to the deck, crumples down to the ground.  
But the beacon still drags me, it twists me around.  
Glimmering, shimmering – it won’t let go.  
My feet leave the ground, I seem to be falling  
Darkening, thundering – cruel shrieks of woe  
Though them I hear my two comrades calling:  
‘Shepard!’  
He cries. She shouts:  
‘Lieutenant! No!’  
The sounds of their struggle fade from my ears.  
Sights fill my eyes like the shooting of spears.  
Fire and darkness. Silence and screams.  
Foreign eyes sparkless. Death swarms in reams.  
Shattering, blackening, gathering dark.  
Light flickers feeble, crush of the spark.  
Faltering, smouldering, perishing, gone.  
Raging untrammelled. Dark steals the dawn.  
Dimly I know that I’m still in the air  
Above a space dock on an evening fair.  
But this blast seems quite real, not like before.  
I’m thrown to the deck and I know no more.

 


	4. Into the Serpent Nebula

_From[The Citadel,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/the-song-of-the-shepard-the-citadel/) second Canto of [The Song](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/). The starship Normandy is travelling to speak with the highest interspecies Council about the attack on a colony ... and about the strange ship which brought the attackers._

* * *

 

The Normandy’s swift, far swifter than light.  
On our own drive core we outpace in flight,  
The beams of the stars, the Milkyway’s blaze  
We leave them behind and fly past their rays.  
She takes the final mass relay  
But days from the battle, though so far away.  
We burst on vista of lavender light.  
The great Serpent Nebula’s glowing alight  
With the blazing of stars in their infancy  
Young starlets and white, old vapours and bright  
Radiant purple transparency.  
Wreathed in the mists of this wavering cloud  
Floats a vast silver structure, ancient and proud.  
From a huge central ring, five wings fly out  
Long, smooth, and curved, revolving about.  
We skim through the billows, plunge through the veils  
Towards this, the Citadel, rich of old tales.  
From the Bridge where I, with my ground team, stand,  
Prepared to disembark, as soon as we land,  
I see the vast arms sliding by, ships in flight,  
And one mammoth vessel of beauty and might,  
A fleck beside it, is the Normandy  
A gnat beside a monarch of the sea.  
‘Look at that monster!’  
Williams cries  
A light of delight shining bright in her eyes.  
‘She’s the Ascension. Asari flagship.’  
Alenko supplies. I hear Joker quip  
Something about its guns and its size.  
But I see she is graceful, like our fair allies.  
Yet she’s nothing like so large, not nearly,  
As was the dark shape which hung over the valley.

We dock aboard the Presidium Ring  
And walk among trees and fountains that sing.  
Its like a deep canyon; a lake runs below  
And above, the young sun-stars shine white as snow.  
Along leafy terraces and through lofty halls,  
Anderson leads us three, past waterfalls.  
Around us are Turians, fierce and tall  
The froggy Salarians, lithe and small  
Asari star-women, blue and fair  
And aliens stranger – their sounds fill the air.


	5. Battle in the Wards

_From[The Citadel,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/the-song-of-the-shepard-the-citadel/) second Canto of [The Song](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/).  Shepard and her fellow marines, Lieutenant Alenko and Gunnery-Chief Williams, are searching for evidence to corroborate their report that ‘Saren Arturius’ an alien from an allied race – led an attack on their colony._

* * *

 

Initial dismissal stops not our case.  
We reconnoitre and pick up the pace.  
If we believe truly, and he has gone rogue,  
There’ll be other matters wherein it is told.  
From here on the Citadel we can well reach  
Numerous networks and search for a breach  
In Saren’s cover and catch him in speech,  
When he slipped up, or when overreached.  
Many leads we follow up, many trails of facts we search,  
Through the record’s sordid tales, look for things that do not work,  
Combing, combing, finding out, little tips and hints that lurk,  
Digging, digging, turning up, making contacts in the murk.  
We pick up the trail of a Quarian girl  
Of whom a ‘Shadow Broker’ agent heard  
She called on C-Sec shortly since  
With a claim to have damning evidence  
‘Gainst an unnamed spectre who had done ill  
But the cop on duty wrote her off as a shill.  
Following sightings and news reports  
My team heads to a clinic, down in the wards.  
It’s more like a space station here below,  
Clean and bright still, but no sunlight like snow.  
With slow plodding steps the Elcor move  
On their four trunk-like limbs, while silent and smooth  
The strange Hanar people glide by in the air  
Like aerial jellyfish, and, here and there  
We see in the passages straight human forms.  
And sometimes a keeper, six-legged and forlorn.  
No word do these speak, and they never look up  
Just trudge along with steps oddly abrupt.  
They call them the keepers, for they keep this place  
Like a strange, taciturn, dwindled janitor race.

The clinic seems to be closed at first  
But the door is unlocked. The latch is burst.  
Thus clearly invited, we slip inside  
Soft down a hall, to a room low and wide.  
A doctor struggles in a gunman’s grasp,  
His voice shouts threats with the sound of a rasp  
But not to her and not to us.  
Another is here, beyond in the dusk.  
The captor’s gun’s in the doctor’s face.  
I hear her breathing loud with fear  
I shout and he looks for a moment’s space.  
A rifle cries out sharp and near.  
‘Fancy seeing you here, Shepard.  
Thanks for the distraction.’  
The gunman falls to the floor of the ward.  
And out steps Garrus Vakarian.  
The doctor’s alright, just shaken and bruised,  
The gunman had asked, and she had refused  
To tell tales of a Quarian who’d sought help from her  
But she’s glad to tell lawful investigators.  
Vakarian’s too, is on the Quarian’s trail.  
He cannot believe how bad C-Sec failed.  
The doctor well remembers the girl,  
A young thing; enviro-suit purple with swirls.  
Her wounds were light, but she seemed in danger,  
And asked the doctor of the Shadow Broker.  
An odd question that, but the doctor knew  
Of a nearby agent, who she sent her to,  
A local bar owner, named Amos Fist.  
We check on him through the agent we know.  
Yes, Fist was, a while ago  
But now a Spectre connection exists….  
We go at once, the girl is in peril.  
She’s gone straight to Saren and may well be killed.  
With us comes eager Garrus Vakarian.  
He’s _done_ with C-Sec. But not done with Saren.

Garrus knows where this ‘Fist’ can be found  
And swift leads us thither, he knows well these grounds,  
To seedier places, and dim lit halls,  
Far from the sound of the bright waterfalls,  
To a back-end nightclub, closed and locked.  
He stops at the door, and briskly knocks.  
Perhaps we four look too military.  
Perhaps our approach is far too scary.  
But rather than asking us what we want  
Or pretending there’s nobody left at this haunt,  
They throw open the doors and gunfire flies.  
We have to take cover and dodge to the sides.  
We demand to see Fist, but they do not heed.  
We fear that they’ve done some dreadful misdeed.  
Through the door, to the dance floor, and over the counters  
We fight past the armed thugs and big Krogan bouncers.  
Even the janitors stand in our path  
But they choose to take our advice not our wrath.  
Vakarian notes my tack with surprise  
‘ “Get a new job”? Well! Smooth improvise.’  
Deep in the dark of the back-room office,  
We find the hiding miserable Fist,  
He thinks his time’s up, expects only death,  
And pleads out surrender in quaking breath.  
‘We’re not here to kill you. Call off your thugs!’  
He sends them off from his place on the rug.  
The Quarian came here, not to long ago,  
He set up a meeting for her to sell info,  
But, she won’t meet the Broker’s men  
Those waiting there are assassins of Saren.  
With any luck, we’ll re-catch this guy later.  
But time is short. The girl is in danger.  
We take the swiftest path we can  
And reach the appointed dark dead end.  
We quietly creep along the way  
Listening to movement some ways away.  
A young voice speaks, high-pitched, somehow canned.  
‘Where is the Shadow Broker?’  
The voice demands.  
The answer is low and we cannot hear.  
‘No. The deal’s off.’  
The young voice holds no fear.  
But weapons are drawn and flash in the dark.  
Vakarian’s bullet is right on the mark.  
The skirmish is brief. The assassins are few.  
They had not expected me and my crew.  
The girl comports herself well, and holds her ground.  
She’s used to handling herself from the sound.  
But when they’re gone, she thanks us the same  
Putting her own naivete to blame.  
Tali Zorah Na’rayya’s her name when we ask.  
Her face hides behind a dark purple mask.  
She hears our story of Saren and strife  
‘Why then, I can thank you for saving my life.’  
She recently encountered a troupe of Geth  
Took down several, and escaped the rest.  
She salvaged data from one’s memory banks  
It was partly burned out and mostly blank  
But she found a recording worth digging for,  
Proud gloating words, heard just days before.

The checks are all run, the voice test bears out  
The data’s combed back, origins check out.  
The speaker is Saren, the listener Geth  
Recorded but hours past the colonist’s deaths.  
‘Eden Prime was a major victory.’  
– His voice is filled with a terrible glee –  
‘We’re one step closer to finding it.  
One step closer to the Conduit.’  
Then another voice, mellow and deeper:  
‘And closer to the return of the Reapers.’


	6. The Sands of Edolus

_From[The Search in Artemis Tau,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-song-of-the-shepard-search-in-artemis-tau/) third Canto of [The Song](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/).  _ While on another errand, the starship Normandy has picked up a distress signal from an uninhabited planet. Shepard has taken a landing party to the site of the signal.

* * *

 

The sky is the colour of mustard brew.  
The cold ground beneath us could never construe  
A fleck of good earth on its sharp barren slopes.  
Sand trickles round us in hard wind-blown ropes.  
In our truck, the “Mako”, we search fruitlessly  
The Quarian, the Turian, and human me.  
The site is bare rock, sand, poison wind  
Though we scour the ground where the signal rings.  
But there’s scattered equipment about in the dust  
Rent, as if gnawed, and half eaten with rust.  
I know it still, the marks are still clear.  
A squad of Alliance marines died here.  
The killer soon finds us, a huge snake-like beast  
With a foul ringed maw, and limbs many pieced.  
I take the wheel and Garrus the guns.  
Tali just tries to make sure the truck runs.  
Long we give battle on pallid grey sands  
Between the dark hills in their tumbling bands.  
But the killer is killed by the Mako’s hot blasts  
And Garrus’ quick eyes and his clawed hand so fast.  
The marines who died did not send the call.  
It was set up before, they were lured to their fall.  
We cannot discover who did it or why,  
Who set it up to send cries to the sky.  
One well placed shot blows the death trap away.  
We contact the ship, and we fly away.  
No travellers more will be lured to its hands  
But never those men will return from the sands.


	7. World of the Ancients

From [The Search in Artemis Tau,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-song-of-the-shepard-search-in-artemis-tau/) third Canto of [The Song](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/).  Shepard and her squad (Lieutenant Alenko, another marine, and Garrus Vakarian, an alien ally) are exploring an ancient ruin, searching for a xeno-archaeologist with enemy ties.

* * *

Therum was formed many ages ago,  
From the hot iron rocks that round Knossos flowed  
For aeons it bloomed and blossomed and grew  
Peoples there flourished, who we never knew.  
Long since it was emptied of rational nau,  
A few marks still stand, surviving somehow,  
Where the land has not changed to bury them,  
Where the sea has not risen engulfing them,  
Where the mountains rose not to break them in pieces  
Where they fell not as prey to weather’s caprices.  
It’s chiefly for these few crumbling ruins  
That the planet is taken note of at all  
Few things now grow there  
Wizened and small.  
An ancient world, drawn close to its sun,  
A sad, empty world, it’s days near done.

Over a rippled and reddened landscape  
Lit up with the glow of the rivers that drape  
Their hot molten ore across the worn bluffs  
The Mako rumbles and climbs through the dust.  
We call through the hot, thin, but breathable air,  
We scan for fresh footprints on weathered stairs.  
Our infra-red scanners are no good at all.  
Volcanic activity makes life-forms too small  
To stand out on the background of radiant heat.  
We look with our eyes, there’s no way to cheat.  
The sky is dark with volcanic smoke.  
When the wind’s from the north the air starts to choke.  
Garrus keeps checking we don’t dehydrate  
And bits of heat training he coolly relates.  
As Kaidan Alenko wipes sweat from his brow,  
He points out that at least the humidity’s low.  
They march cheerfully, stoutly along by my side  
Combing the ruin in the dust, heat, and dry.


	8. The Maiden in the Ruin

_From[The Search in Artemis Tau,](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-song-of-the-shepard-search-in-artemis-tau/) third Canto of [The Song](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/). _

_Shepard and her squad (Lieutenant Alenko, another marine, and Garrus Vakarian, an alien ally) are exploring an ancient ruin, searching for a xeno-archaeologist with enemy ties._

* * *

The stope leads steeply into the ground  
Echoes rattle away as our booted feet pound.  
Lamps flash up before us, lighting the mine,  
Flicker out as we pass, dark follows behind.

Long we search through the ancient rooms  
Their purpose lost in endless glooms  
Til deep in the maze far under the ground  
Where clatter of rock is the only sound  
I see in the distance a pale cool light  
Beyond the orange lamps, in the long buried night.  
We follow and come to a gap in the wall  
That seems to be filled with a waterfall,  
Translucent, impassable, softly it glows  
Over our faces its rippling light flows.  
Suspended within it, a blue maiden floats.  
To us she calls in mellifluous notes.  
‘Hello! Hello! Can you hear me out there?  
Please help me, I’m trapped, I’ve been caught in a snare.’  
Her face is young, like a blooming girl  
Smoothly away her pert head-tails curl.  
Her eyes are as blue and as round as the sky.  
Her small, dainty hands are work-hardened and dry.  
She is dressed in a slender tunic of green.  
That face is the sweetest that I’ve ever seen.  
‘We hear you!’ I call. ‘We’ll get you out.  
But what is your name? What is this about?’  
‘I’m just a researcher, Liara T’Soni.  
This is an old Prothean piece of security.  
I turned the field on to hold off the Geth.  
But I did something wrong…’ she seems short of breath.  
‘-This was probably meant to catch persons of doubt.  
Now the Geth can’t get in, but I can’t get out.’  
‘Can you tell me how to shut down the field?’  
‘Yes, there’s a button. Just past this shield.  
It’s out of my reach, over there on the wall.  
But you can’t get through here, that’s no good at all.  
And I know of no other passage but this.  
I cannot direct you to paths in the darkness.  
‘We’ll find one.’ I say. ‘Stay calm, you’ll get out.’  
‘The Geth have been trying, searching about.  
Be careful out there, there’s a Krogan who leads them.  
The Geth may be deadly, but beware of him!’  
I call to the ship, let them know she’s been found,  
But we’ll be some time for she’s bound underground.  
We leave the blue maiden floating alone  
And take a dark path leading off through the stone.

Back and forth along the line  
Through the dark and dusty mine  
We travel scanning for a road  
To lead us back into the hold  
But paths all turn and twist away  
Or turn to dead ends far from day.  
At times we encounter small troops of Geth  
Combing the labyrinth, searching the depths.  
That they have pursued her is beyond doubt.  
Garrus halloos:  
‘Hey, Shepard! Check this out.’  
It’s an old mining laser left here to rust  
It’s worn, out of power, and covered in dust.  
But he thinks he can get it to wake up and run  
(He likes to tinker, it’s useful and fun.)  
The miners left power banks, as shown by the lights.  
Alenko sets out to the upper heights  
To divert the power, whatever is left  
And bring it down to the drill in the cleft.  
I with my omnitool sound out the halls  
The sonar bleeps testing the depth of the walls  
The three of us haul the drill through the dark  
To the spot that I’ve found, and set off a spark.  
Red blazes hot in the narrow space  
The three of us spin round and swiftly race  
Away from the crack of rock, shatters of stone  
As the drill breaks apart the earth’s granite bones.  
Then the scream peters out and the light fades away.  
And we make our way back through the settling stone spray  
Of splintered rock and choking hot dust.  
The drill’s power’s gone, the reserves hadn’t much.  
But a broken path lies through the bone of the ground.  
The granite still rumbles; a strange shifting sound.  
The opening of the tunnel is wide  
The rock sizzles and cracks as we walk inside.  
The heat’s like an oven but air’s rushing through  
The hot and the cold turning it to a flue.  
As we go on it gets filled with crushed rock  
Till near the end the path’s almost blocked  
A biotic blast and then some hand-work  
The narrow way widens. We climb through the murk.

In the blackness we search for an upward path  
Climbing old stairwells half fallen and crashed,  
Counting the levels and measuring the depth  
Making sure that our sense of direction is kept.  
Our only light is the lamps on our guns.  
Now and again, the uncountable tons  
Of granite above us, grumble and shake,  
Slow growing tremors, minor earth-quakes.  
Finally above us, we see the blue light  
And climb the last stairwell, blinking in bright.  
‘You made it!’  
Her voice falls like dew on the grass.  
‘I was afraid there might be no way past!’  
‘We couldn’t find one. So we made one instead.’  
‘Oh. That’s what that was. The crash was widespread.  
That panel, right there. It should release me.’  
I reach out to touch it, but Garrus stops me.  
‘Hang on, Shepard! You sure we can trust her?  
Her mother’s with Saren. Where does that leave her?’  
‘I am not my mother!’ Liara cries.  
‘I don’t know how she joined Saren or why!’  
Her voice is indignant, her head is held high  
Her hov’ring form quivers, and flash her blue eyes.  
‘The Geth are clearly pursuing her, Garrus.  
And even if not, I’d still have to chance it.’  
A moment’s work and the shimmering blue field  
Flickers outs and collapses, the doorway unseals.  
Liara lands lightly on slippered toes  
And turns to face us where our white lamp light glows.  
‘Thank-you. It was so long in the dark and the silence  
… And the eyes of the Geth. You’re with the Alliance?’  
‘Yes. I’m Commander Rosamund Shepard.  
We came to find you, I take it you’ve heard  
Of your mother’s friend and the people he slew.  
Do you know why his Geth have come after you?’  
‘No I do not!’ She shudders, and then:  
‘You don’t suppose that _Benezia_ sent them?’  
Alenko speaks calmly out to her  
‘You are a well known Prothean researcher.  
Saren is looking for the “Conduit”.  
He probably wants you to help search for it.’  
Before Liara can answer a word,  
A louder rumble, crashing, is heard.  
The ground starts to shake and the stone above cracks.  
Shattered rock crashes about in the black.  
We’ve triggered an earthquake while under the ground.  
This place is unstable. It’s going to come down.  
‘Let’s go! No more words!’  
I sprint through the trap.  
Behind me, the three run behind in the black.  
Without the orange lights, the way is more deadly  
We run with our lamps held aloft so we see  
The myriad pitfalls, precipitous drops,  
The fallen stone heaps in leg breaking blocks.  
Over my com, I hear Joker calling.  
I do not stop. I answer while running.  
‘That volcano, Commander? It’s having a fit.  
We’ve got to leave soon or we’re going to catch it!’  
‘Squad Bravo’s aboard?’  
‘Not yet, Commander.’  
‘What’s held them up?! Go get them, Joker.  
We’re on our way now. I’ll send our nav-point.  
And the Mako is parked. Near the gorge. Just adjoint.  
Pick it up and stand by. We’ll be there. Soon.’  
‘Okay, Commander. But she’s not immune.’  
“She” is the Normandy, our beautiful ship.  
Joker sounds worried…  
 _Crack!_ The wall rips.  
Stone slides and crashes to depths we just guess.  
Light shines ahead through a doorway, lifeless.

In the chamber before us many Geth stand.  
Silent and waiting, a cold statue band.  
Through their ranks stumps a hulking orange mass.  
Geth slide aside, and slide back when it’s past.  
‘Just hand the Asari over, Human.  
Or don’t. If you’d rather. That’s lots more fun.’  
The maiden beside me stands straight and stiff.  
The chamber walls shudder, an ancient sill slips.  
‘This place is collapsing.’ I shout. ‘We can’t fight!’  
He oafishly chortles: ‘Oh, we can alright.’  
‘What do you want with Dr. T’Soni?’  
‘Saren wants her for something, didn’t tell me.  
You better come, girl. You’ll find out more later.  
‘No!’ Liara’s voice rings through the air,  
‘I will not go with you anywhere!  
And I certainly will not help Saren the traitor!’  
‘Thank-you, Liara T’Soni.’ I breathe.  
I prepare to defend her. We all four will leave.  
Alenko and Garrus, on our left and our right  
Close quietly in, our circle grows tight.  
The earth above groans in its own deadly fight.  
Our barriers spring and our ring becomes bright.  
‘You heard the Lady. Now let us pass!’  
I speak mere defiance. He knows and he laughs.  
His Geth slip tighter to seal fast the road.  
‘One thing, ere we go-’ I add ‘-to what abode  
Would you have taken her if she had come?’  
‘To his ship!’ he snorts. ‘In space! Are you dumb?  
Kill them.’ he croaks. ‘Except the Asari.  
If you can help it. No skin off me.’  
The change in the motionless horde is abrupt.  
One moment they’re still. Then madness erupts.  
The old dusty chamber so long dark and still,  
Blazes with fury and gunfire screams shrill.  
A whirlpool of chaos, of flying steel  
Exploding plasma and biotic fields.  
Tornadic winds send the dust all awhirl  
Through the chaos the quake its sharp stone shards hurls.  
On my right hand, Garrus’ rifle cries out  
Back to my back, Alenko hurls Geth about.  
n my left is the scholarly youthful blue girl.  
But what is this? Around her light swirls!  
I only half see her, beside as I fight  
Yet her small hands spin masses of light,  
Which form, coalesce into globes of dark blue  
Pulsing and glowing with reflective hue,  
And whirl away towards the mass of our foes  
Catching them up in the field as they go.  
The Krogan is dead. I saw not by whom.  
Though we are battered, now fewer Geth loom  
Driven back ‘neath our blasts to the walls of the room  
Over our heads, the rocks itself booms.  
‘Break off and come now!’ I shout to my crew,  
And sprint up the steps to the chamber door, through.  
‘Commander, where are you!?’ I hear Joker shout.  
‘We’re coming! Hold on if you can!’ I call out.  
Rock crashes behind, before, overhead.  
I leap to the side and look back whence we sped.  
‘Ahead of me! Go! Go! Straight up the slope!’  
They hurtle past, in the dust, up the stope,  
Garrus. Liara. Alenko. All there.  
I swing in behind them and bring up the rear.  
Light shines ahead, Therum’s dim, rusty day  
Seen through the dust and the fallen stone spray.  
We leap from the tunnel, are hit by a blast  
Of scorching hot wind, choking and fast.  
Through burned stinging eyes, we see just above,  
The Normandy swoop like a great silver dove  
Down through the dust and the smoke and the ash  
Towards the slow spreading streams of earth’s blood that splash  
Over the melting bones of the land  
As the Mountain rumbles and coughs where it stands.  
Before us she drops, her bay doors flung wide.  
We sprint down the slope, and leap the divide.  
The doors crash behind us. We breathe the cool air  
As the Normandy bears us away from the flare.


	9. Ashley

_From_ _'_ _The Towers of Feros_ _'_ _fourth_ _Canto of_ [_The Song of the Shepard_](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/) _._ _Shepard reflects upon her subordinate officer, Gunnery-Chief Williams_

* * *

  
She’s a strange blending of the hard and the kind,  
Of deeds of the body, and flights of the mind.  
Once, in the hold, we happened to talk  
Of the vast fields of wonder outside the airlock,  
The light, and the movement, beyond the skies  
The flowing, the glowing nebulae  
The edge of the galaxy spinning away  
Far past the reaches of our stellar days  
The galactic diamonds lacing the void  
Which man cannot reach, but sing to him joy  
The hand of God in the constellations  
The laughing, blinding light of creation.  
I had not realized that she even saw this  
So many are blind and pass over bliss  
Unthinking, unseeing, and dead to the world.  
Not her. I realize that Ashley has heard  
The Song of the Morning which wise men know  
Sung in deep space where the deadly rays flow.


	10. The Towe

_From_ _'_ _The Towers of Feros_ _'_ _fourth_ _Canto of_ [_The Song of the Shepard_](http://charlotteannkent.tumblr.com/masseffectpoetry) _._ _The Normandy is flying into a colony which sent out a report of Geth sightings._

* * *

  
The atmosphere is white with haze  
And swathed in clouds turned bright with rays.  
Through the wreathes of mist and air  
I glimpse two towers, tall and spare.  
Far, far above the ground they stand  
Bound only by a slender band  
Of ancient rock, from one to next.  
How smooth they stand, how unlike wrecks.  
It’s said they were carved not built  
That their roots stretch down below the silt  
Of the moving, shifting marshlands below  
And down to the bedrock of Feros.  
The eastern tower holds “Exo-Geni”  
A mining, corporate investment entity.  
But the one on the west, they call Zhu’s Hope  
Bound to the east by the narrow stone rope.  
There a tiny band of settlers live,  
Folk who have come to stay and give.  
We glide the vessel through a great stone window  
Into a vast open room in the stone.  
They answered our hails, told us where to go  
But the chamber is empty. We dock here alone.

~*~

The air in the bay is fresh and chill  
The wind round the tower whistles shrill  
The ground is lost in the mists below  
Around us wreathing vapour blows.  
We turn, Liara, Garrus, and I  
Into the tower, away from the sky.  
Liara’s laid aside her tunic  
We girded her from our armoury,  
An armoured suit of soft silver  
And a gun as light as a metal reed.  
The path from the bay where the Normandy’s docked  
Is simple to follow, though not truly marked.  
It’s newly been handled by hands that care.  
It’s clean and does not need repair.  
The halls cut straight from the seamless stone  
Cry out of their dwellers, yet we walk alone.  
Liara must see everywhere  
The vaulted chambers broad and fair,  
The narrow nooks and closets dark  
Far beyond the reach of spark  
The winding stairs and far pierced shafts  
Through which the soft white sunbeams laugh.  
It is believed this was once  
A great Prothean library  
Many many ages since  
A place of knowledge and of study.  
No known records here remain  
Just empty stone above the plain.  
Oh, how she wishes she could see  
This tower as it used to be!  
Now the calls of birds are all the sound,  
And here and there a pale vine twines around  
Through nooks and crannies in the shade.  
I wonder how many cracks it’s made.

  



	11. Over the Bridge

From Canto 4 of the [Song of the Shepard](https://charlotteannrose.wordpress.com/the-song-of-the-shepard/)

The Geth came at first as shadows at night.  
They haunted the towers but challenged no fight.  
Then they returned and the east tower fell,  
Geth troops now march from the slain corporate shell.  
And so to the East my team turns its gaze  
Whence death has marched for many long days.  
‘Tali, bring the Mako  
Round to the tower’s gate.  
Over the bridge our team must go.  
The six of us await.’  


Overhead is the sky, on each side is the sky  
An ocean of mist lies on every side.  
Far in the distance pinnacles float  
Over the fogbank, like sharp broken notes  
But the bridge, which seemed like an over-spun thread  
Stretched dizzily over a great gulf of dread  
Proves up close to be solid and broad  
Good to support a thousand such squads;  
A causeway of giants tremendous and bold  
Far in the clouds, enormous and old.  
From the ramparts we’re hailed and called off to the side  
To a deep hidden chamber where many men hide;  
Scientists and bureaucrats, janitors and guards  
Who escaped from the east when the Geth first hit hard.  
The Geth have not found them, or else did not care.  
They’ve seen the troops march but Geth never stopped there.  
At the news that Zhu’s Hope, their neighbour, yet stands  
Many rejoice, and encourage our plans.  
But their current leader, Director Jeong  
Acts like we’re scavenging vagabonds.  
Company property’s company property  
Don’t mess with anything that’s ExoGeni’s.  
But one older woman, Julia Baynam  
Who’s just gotten back from a long expedition  
To find all in chaos and fire and war  
Briefs us on the tower she left weeks before  
And begs us to keep an eye out for survivors.  
Many got out, but she’s not found her daughter.  
A furlong away from the lowering gates  
We leave the Mako, bid Tali wait  
Retreat if she needs, to keep herself safe  
And return, when we call, to these eastern gates.  
I will lead Squad Alpha up.  
Alenko will lead Bravo down  
We’ll stay in contact, search through the huge place;  
Rejoin when the Geth base is found.  
The tower looms up tall before  
Open and dark are the great brazen doors.


End file.
